British investigators say Pakistan's Bhutto was not shot (1st Lead)

Feb 8, 2008, 9:07 GMT

Islamabad - British investigators have concluded that Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto died after cracking her skull on the hatch of her vehicle during a December 27 attack, confirming government claims that she was not shot, officials said Friday.

An investigation team from Britain's Scotland Yard submitted a much-anticipated preliminary report on the assassination to Bhutto's family and the government Friday morning.

'Benazir Bhutto died of a severe head injury as a consequence of the bomb blast,' Abdul Majeed, head of the Pakistani police investigation team, said as he read the executive summary of the Scotland Yard report during a televised press conference.

'Such an explosion would generate more force than necessary to provoke the consequences of the case,' he said, adding that the blast velocity was between 6,000 and 9,000 metres per second.

He said the British team concluded that the attacker had missed Bhutto with three shots from a handgun at close range before detonating the bomb, which also killed 22 people.

Bhutto's family and aides who were with her in the vehicle claim she was shot in the head and chest in the attack. The two-time prime minister was buried the next day, following Muslim tradition, and no autopsy was performed, further fueling the controversy.

According to the British report, the only injury to Bhutto was major trauma to the right side of her head, which investigators ruled out as being from a gunshot wound.

The report concluded the injury was caused by the side of the armour-plated escape hatch - for weeks government officials referred to it as a sunroof - as Bhutto fell back into the vehicle after the blast.